Ian Knauer News

It's the final week left to vote for the 2023 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards! Voting ends on 12/31 at midnight. Don't miss out on making sure that your favorite theatres, stars, and shows get the recognition they deserve!

There's just two weeks left to vote and we have the latest standings as of Monday, December 18th for the 2023 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards! Don't miss out on making sure that your favorite theatres, stars, and shows get the recognition they deserve!

It's the final 3 weeks and we have the latest standings as of Monday, December 11th for the 2023 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards! Don't miss out on making sure that your favorite theatres, stars, and shows get the recognition they deserve!

It's December, and the first standings of the month have been announced as of Tuesday, December 5th for the 2023 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards! Don't miss out on making sure that your favorite theatres, stars, and shows get the recognition they deserve!

Get a first look at the highly-anticipated production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's STATE FAIR at The Arrow Rock Lyceum. Check out exclusive photos and get a glimpse of the talented cast bringing this beloved musical to life. Don't miss your chance to experience the magic of STATE FAIR!

The legend of the Titanic is a haunting, yet uplifting tale of dreams and hubris, unfinished stories and transcendent moments. It is a story that has been told from so many perspectives for more than a century since the unsinkable ship did, tragically, go down on her maiden voyage in 1912. But perhaps no retelling of the events captures both the scale of the drama and its intimacy as perfectly as the Maury Yeston/Peter Stone musical, TITANIC, with its majestic score and tightly woven book. Now in an epic and astonishingly beautiful new co-production created by MSMT with the Fulton Theatre, this masterpiece comes to life with a sensational cast in a dazzling visual production that focuses on the profoundly touching humanity of the saga – of the lives lived and lost, the lessons learned and remembered.

“The music and the story are moving, compelling, beautiful, funny, and this particular telling is unique because it utilizes incredible technology not previously available,” says actor Ian Knauer, who plays the Titanic’s first officer William Murdoch, in the spectacular new production that opens Maine State Music Theatre’s 2023 season at the Pickard Theater on June 7th.

Maine State Music Theatre will present Titanic this summer. Learn how to purchase tickets!

Three years after the initial cancelation due to the pandemic, Fulton Theatre will produce Titanic. The production runs from April 20th through May 21, 2023.

Bucks County Playhouse continues its homecoming season with an all-new production of the high-energy, Tony-winning musical sensation, “Kinky Boots.”

As evidenced by the breadth of nominations for Broadway World's Annual Audience Choice Awards, Maine's theatrical landscape seems to grow and flourish with each new season. For a state as remote as we are, we boast two prestigious regional theatres now in their second half centuries a?" Maine State Music Theatre and Ogunquit Playhouse a?" which are leaders on the national regional scene and which have become destinations for travellers from far flung places. Add to these an array of countless other companies of every size and philosophic bent, and you have a colorful, rich artistic arena that grows more interesting each year. I am privileged to get to sample these performances as Broadway World's Maine editor and to be able to compare many of them favorably with shows I see across the country, in New York and London. These are my personal choices of the best in Maine for 2019, grouped by theatre company and show.

The Broadway Artists Connection (BAC) presents the 2019 Cabaret Benefit for the Matsiko World Orphan Choir hosted by Broadway's Bronson Norris Murphy (PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) on Monday, October 28th at 7:00pm (doors open at 6:00pm).

The Broadway Artists Connection (BAC) presents the 2019 Cabaret Benefit for the Matsiko World Orphan Choir hosted by Broadway's Bronson Norris Murphy (PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) on Monday, October 28th at 7:00pm (doors open at 6:00pm).

a?oeFor nearly forty years this story has given faithful service to the Young in Heart; and Time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashiona??..a?? These words from L. Frank Baum dance across the screen during the overture of MSMT's stunning new production of THE WIZARD OF OZ, reminding the audience of the perennial appeal of this beloved story. And as the curtain goes up, the audience is treated to arguably the largest, most lavish production in MSMT history with a cast of fifty (that includes twenty children and a dog), dazzling technical elements, staging and choreography to blow one away, and performances to melt the heart. a?oea??When I saw Marc Robin's production at the Fulton in 2016, I said, a?oeWe have to do this at MSMT. THE WIZARD OF OZ had not been on this stage since 1961, and it was time to give it a new life,a?? says Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark. Clark is one of the large panel, which also includes Marc Robin, Travis M. Grant, Carolyn Anne Miller, Susan Cella, Ian Knauer, and David Girolmo, who have come together in conversation with BWW's Maine Editor Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold in MSMT and BWW's final season collaboration of PEEK BEHIND THE CURTAIN at the Curtis Memorial Library on August 14th.

To stage the beloved cultural icon that is THE WIZARD OF OZ offers any theatre company a herculean challenge: one which requires stretching the imagination to the limits to create a universe where reality is redefined and fantasy is fulfilled. In short, it demands stunning stagecraft and brilliant artistic vision. And it is just that kind of theatrical magic which Maine State Music Theatre's new production co- directed by Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark boldly and beautifully realizes.

a?oeIn the musical they all learn that the thing they believe is missing is already inside of them. We all have within us everything we think we are deficient in a?" everything we need to become the person we are supposed to be.a?? Actor David Girolmo is speaking of the lesson his character, the Cowardly Lion, learns in the stage version of L. Frank Baum's iconic classic THE WIZARD OF OZ, which runs from August 7-24 in a spectacularly fantastical production co-directed by narc Robin and Curt Dale Clark at Maine State Music Theatre.

Stephen DeAngelis continues his ongoing salute to Broadway and Off-Broadway Standbys, Understudies and Alternates with its next edition of AT THIS PERFORMANCE... to be held on Monday, March 4th at The Green Room 42.

Stephen DeAngelis continues his ongoing salute to Broadway and Off-Broadway Standbys, Understudies and Alternates with its next edition of AT THIS PERFORMANCE… to be held on Monday, December 17th at The Green Room 42, Green Fig, Fourth Floor, Yotel NYC, 570 Tenth Avenue (at 42nd Street), New York, NY 10036 at 7 PM. 

The Broadway League and The Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds (COBUG) presented the tenth annual Broadway Salutes ceremony on Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at Sardi's Restaurant (234 West 44th St).

Stephen DeAngelis continues his ongoing salute to Broadway and Off-Broadway Standbys, Understudies and Alternates with its next edition of AT THIS PERFORMANCE… to be held on Monday, November 19th at The Green Room 42, Green Fig, Fourth Floor, Yotel NYC, 570 Tenth Avenue (at 42nd Street), New York, NY 10036 at 7 PM.